ESA 2026: Ecology in an Era of Uncertainty

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) Annual Meeting will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah from July 26-31, 2026. This year's meeting theme is "Ecology in an Era of Uncertainty". 

At the annual meeting, NEON will host the Best NEON Presentation Award, workshops and short courses focused on NEON data, and technical presentations. NEON staff will also be available to answer questions and provide information at the NEON booth (#512) in the Exhibit Hall.

Register to attend at https://esa.org/saltlake2026/registration/.

Access the ESA 2026 program for more details about activities. 

NEON at ESA 2026

All times Mountain Daylight Time

Visit the NEON booth (#512) in the Exhibit Hall 

Meet NEON Ambassadors! Come to the booth between 4:30-5:30 pm, Tue. Jul. 28 to meet NEON Ambassadors, Anna Spiers and Kit Lewers. They will be available to answer questions and share their experience. 

Workshops

Ecological Synthesis: So you have an Idea... What Next?. NEON Co-Organizer: Eric Sokol. Time: Mon. Jul. 27, 1:30 - 3:00 pm. 355F. 

Empowering Scientists to Build Data-Rich Ecological Learning Experiences with NEON. NEON Co-Organizer: Claire Lunch. Time: Tue. Jul. 28, 11:45 am - 1:15 pm. 355C.

Generating Plant Functional Types Across a NEON Site: A Hands-on Tutorial. NEON Ambassador Organizer: Anna Spiers, NEON Co-Organizer: Claire Lunch. Time: Tue. Jul. 28, 1:30 - 3:00 pm. 355A.

Forecasting Populations and Communities: A Hands-on Example from the NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge. NEON Organizer: Eric Sokol, NEON Co-Organizers: Chandra Earl, Tera del Priore. Time: Wed. Jul. 29, 11:45am - 1:15 pm. 254B.

Implementing Darwin Core Data Standard to Enhance the FAIRness of Biological Survey and Monitoring Data. NEON Co-Organizer: Chandra Earl, NEON Ambassador Co-Organizer: Kit Lewers. Time: Thu. Jul. 30, 8:00 - 9:30 am. 355D.

Special Sessions

NEON as a Research Platform: Services, Access, and Case Studies. NEON Organizer: Rommel Zulueta, NEON Co-Organizers: Chandra Earl, Hojun Song. Time: Mon. Jul. 27, 11:45am - 1:15 pm. 355B. 

Making Ecological Data More Open and Interoperable Across Projects and Platforms. NEON Co-Organizers: Eric Sokol, Chandra Earl, NEON Ambassador Co-Organizer: Kit Lewers. Time: Wed. Jul. 29, 10:00 - 11:30 am. 355A.

Roadmap Toward an Environmental Field or Environmental Field Research Technician Certification. NEON Co-Organizer: Tanya Maslak. Time:  Thu. July 30, 10:00 - 11:30 am. 355A.

Welcome to the NEON Biorepository: A National Resource for Preserving Ecological Samples and Making Physical and Digital Data Accessible. NEON Organizer: Hojun Song, NEON Co-Organizer: Chandra Earl. Time: Thu. Jul. 30, 1:30 - 3:00 pm. 355D.

Symposia

Building an AI-ready Ecology and Biodiversity Data Infrastructure for Science & Action. NEON Co-Organizers: Kate Thibault, Eric Sokol. Time: Mon. Jul. 27, 3:30 - 5:00 pm. Grand Ballroom F.

Career Building & Recruiting

A Day in the Life of a NEON scientist: Responsibilities and Career Paths Critical to the National Ecological Observatory Network. NEON Organizer: Tanya Maslak, NEON Co-Organizer: Callie Puntenney. Time: Tue. Jul. 28, 10:30 - 11:30 am. Career Central - Exhibit Hall. 

Careers in Labs, Field Stations & Observatories. NEON Panelist: Chris McKay. Time: Wed. Jul. 29, 12:00 - 1:00 pm. Career Central - Exhibit Hall.

Contributed Oral Presentation 

A metadata-first FAIR4AI checklist and automated evaluation agent for biodiversity datasets. (COS030) - NEON Presenting Author: Eric Sokol. Time: Tue. Jul. 28, 9:15 - 9:30 am. 250E.

Contributed Poster Presentation 

New visualization tools and resources for interacting with NEON Remote Sensing, Surface Atmosphere Exchange, and Hydrology Data. (LB12-143) - NEON Presenting Author: Claire Lunch. Time: Thu. Jul. 30, 5:00 - 6:30 pm. Exhibit Hall. 

Award for Best NEON Presentation 

NEON is hosting the Best NEON Presentation Award for the second year. The award recognizes an outstanding oral presentation featuring research that incorporates NEON data, samples, specimens, or NEON Research Support Services. NEON is currently offering the Best NEON Presentation Award to oral presentations only, which will be judged during the annual meeting and announced by NEON shortly after the meeting concludes. 

Presentations that will be judged for the Best NEON Presentation Award: 

• A Use Case of AI-Enabled Macroecology: Unlocking ecological insights from natural history collections for continental-scale trait-based research (SYMP01) - presented by Alyson East. Time: Mon. Jul. 27, 4:30-4:50 pm. Grand Ballroom F.

• An Atlas of Belowground Fauna in the United States: Cross-scale Diversity Patterns and Conservation Opportunities (COS030) - presented by Gwendolyn Lloyd. Time: Tue. Jul. 28, 8:45-9:00 am. 250E.

• Integrating NEON Freshwater Biodiversity Data with Theoretical Food-Web Models to Understand Network Resilience to Environmental Variability (COS058) - presented by Minyoung Lee. Time: Tue. Jul. 28, 2:15-2:30 pm. 250E.

• Interacting Precipitation and Temperature Anomalies Alter Percent Cover in a Subset of Plant Species Across the Southeastern U.S. (COS174) - presented by Sierra Perez. Time: Thu. Jul. 30, 2:15-2:30 pm. 250A.

Field Trips

CANCELED: This field trip has been canceled due to wildfires, please join us in other NEON-led activities. National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) in the Great Basin - Visit the ONAQ (Onaqui) NEON Terrestrial Field Site. Time: Sun. Jul. 26, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm. 

• Join us for a tour of one of NEON's 81 field sites and learn about long term ecological data collection at the terrestrial field site, Onaqui NEON. The trip involves viewing the unique ecology of the site, demonstrations of sampling techniques, and the opportunity to learn more about NEON resources and the history of data collection at ONAQ. 

Learn more about ESA 2026 at https://esa.org/saltlake2026/